President Barack Obama greets Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton (right), mother of slain 15-year-old girl Hadiya Pendleton, as he visits Hyde Park Academy in Chicago to discuss gun violence and the economy. Hadiya Pendleton was gunned down as she stood with friends after school in a park that is located just a mile from Obama's Chicago home. (Zbigniew Bzdak, Chicago Tribune)

A measure that carries the name of slain Chicago teen Hadiya Pendleton is the first piece of firearms legislation to make its way to the full Senate since the deadly December shootings in Newtown, Conn.

The bill, co-sponsored by U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk of Illinois, contains a section named for Pendleton and Nyasia Pryear-Yard, a teenage victim of gun violence in New York. It aims to crack down on so-called straw buyers — people who legally buy guns for others who can't. No current federal law explicitly prohibits the practice.

"This bill says the party's over," Durbin, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, said in an interview after the vote. "If you think this is a good way to make a living or a lot of money … we're going to nail you."

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill Thursday by an 11-7 vote. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the panel, was the only member of his party to vote in favor. Kirk and fellow Republican co-sponsor Susan Collins of Maine were not able to cast votes, as neither has a seat on the panel.

The bill would make it a felony to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer on behalf of any other person, or to buy a gun from a private seller on behalf of someone who is not legally eligible to own one.

Law enforcement officials have complained for years that straw buyers undermine local laws. Nowhere is the problem more apparent than Chicago, where there is no shortage of illicit guns despite onerous regulations and a ban on gun shops.

Of the 17,230 successfully traced firearms recovered by the Chicago Police Department from January 2008 to March 2012, 58 percent came from outside Illinois, according to data provided by the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

It's easy for straw purchasers to exploit weaker gun sales laws in nearby states. In Indiana, by far the top source of out-of-state guns used in crimes in Cook County, private gun sales do not require background checks or any transaction record.

And the risk of prosecution for straw purchasers is slim. It is illegal to make false statements in connection with the purchase of a firearm, but a straw purchaser who is caught doing so will typically face nothing more than a so-called paperwork violation, for which the penalties are low.

The gun trafficking bill, introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who chairs the Judiciary Committee, would give prosecutors a new criminal statute with steeper penalties to use against straw purchasers.

It is the first piece of gun-related legislation to gain bipartisan support and attention from a congressional committee since a spate of deadly shootings raised concerns about gun violence. Rep. Bobby Rush, a South Side Democrat, introduced a nearly identical version in the House, but support for the measure in that chamber is less clear.

The bill does not make the key changes to gun laws that President Barack Obama called for in response to the massacre of 20 first-graders and six adults last year in Newtown: a ban on assault weapons and required background checks for all gun purchases.